


HSWC 2014 Bonus Round Six Fills

by sonicSymphony



Series: HSWC 2014 Bonus Round Fills [6]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: F/F, F/M, Gen, M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-28
Updated: 2014-08-10
Packaged: 2018-02-10 19:31:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Underage
Chapters: 20
Words: 12,263
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2037246
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sonicSymphony/pseuds/sonicSymphony
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A variety of ships in many different situations, all written for the sixth bonus round of the Homestuck Shipping World Cup 2014.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Domestic Apocalypse; Jade/Roxy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Girls with Guns and Post-Apocalyptic Fiction

The decrepit, empty house at the top of a hill in the deserted town seems like a decent place to stop for the night. Even though you haven’t seen signs of any survivors in miles, you and Jade are still wary as you creep silently through the house, pointing the barrel of your gun around every corner as Jade walks backwards, making sure nothing has the audacity to creep up behind you. That happened when you were back near Albany, and that dude was so _rude_. You don’t even feel bad about shooting him in the knee and leaving him behind a pile of trash for a gang to find.

Once you’ve covered every inch of the home and deemed it safe, you set up camp in the large attic. It’s full of cobwebs, but the previous owners had remodeled it into a spare bedroom, so there’s a musty, sheet-less mattress and a large, semicircular window that looks out over the rest of the town. You can see for miles.

Jade pulls out a cloth and presses it against the glass to muffle the sound of her shattering it with the butt of her gun. After clearing away any troublesome shards, she points her sniper rifle out of the hole she made and uses the scope to get a better look at some of the area around you as you unpack some of your gear. Though you’ll be leaving first thing tomorrow morning—you’re not going to make it to Washington by winter if you take long breaks, so you’ve been trekking nonstop for weeks now—you still need to get out some of your sleeping gear, as well as some raw meat you’d skinned a dog for earlier.

After you’ve gotten situated, Jade is still scoping out the area, so you creep up behind her and drape yourself across her back, propping your chin on her shoulder and kissing the side of her neck. You feel her smile, and the cutesy moment breaks when your stomach grumbles loudly. As you both laugh, you say, “I wonder if the gas stove downstairs still works.”

“Well, there’s only one way to find out.” Jade seems satisfied by the lack of activity, so she slings her gun across her back and you do the same to yours before grabbing the meat and heading downstairs.

The stove does indeed work; the town probably wasn’t abandoned that long ago. It’s much easier to cook like this than over a fire, and you have no idea when you’ll be somewhere where you can use a stove again.

Once you’ve both eaten, you head back upstairs to zip your sleeping bags together. You spray the bed down with germ and parasite killer before laying the gigantic sleeping bag on top. Jade crawls in right after you do, and the moment she’s in you latch onto her back. “I’ll be the big spoon tonight,” you declare, nuzzling into her hair. “You don’t have to worry ‘bout a thing, hun.”

“Sounds great!” Jade sighs, taking your hand and bringing it up to her lips and kissing it. “Night, Roxy.”

“Nighty night, Jade!”

You get  _maybe_  two hours of sleep before you’re awoken by the sound of motorcycles. You shake Jade awake immediately reaching for the rifle and scooting out of the sleeping back so you can creep across the floor towards the window, low to the ground and invisible to anyone outside. You glance through the glassless opening, waiting for your eyes to adjust, and see shapes coming towards you from a distance. As they all rev at once and flames shoot out of their exhaust pipes—a scare tactic, you’ve learned—you realize exactly who they are.

“They’re  _Tunnel Snakes_!” Jade says before you can from where she’s crouched beside you, a scowl settling on her usually pleasant face. “I thought we ditched them ages ago!”

“Fuckin’ gangs,” you sigh, taking your rifle and clicking the safety off. Jade does the same with hers. “Let’s show them not to fuck with the  _ladies_!”

 


	2. Heroic Manners; Eridan/Feferi/Sollux

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: comedy of manners/super powers origin story

Being a servant to the two most powerful people in the city is _exhausting_.

From Mistress Feferi, it’s always, “Oh Sollux, dear, the pansies in the back garden are wilting slightly, would you mind tending to them so they are more erect?” or “Please check over the horses, I’m not sure Tavros ferried them properly when he came by,” or “Does my backside look particularly large in this? Touch it to make sure.” From Master Eridan, you receive, “Oi, wanker, the only time you should be spitting near me is when you’re shining my shoes,” or “Are you fuckin’ _slow in the head_? I asked you to bring more crumpets ten minutes ago!” or “Distract my Great Aunt Bracknell while Fef and I _sort our paperwork_.” Then he’d wink at you and you’d feel slightly ill.

You’re in the city square where the “peasantry” mills about, buying some bread and fruit for your uptight employers when, coincidentally, a piano that was being lifted up to an apartment falls directly on top of you. You only have time to raise your arms above your head—

But the piano does not hit you.

There are gasps and screams from passersby, and when you open your eyes you see that three ladies and one gentleman have fainted. You look up, expecting the piano to still be falling through the air, but the instrument is _levitating_ , surrounded by pale blue and red light that seems to be coming from _you_.

Aghast, you step out of the way and move your arms back to your sides. The piano drops the final ten feet to the cobblestones and smashes, though it’s obviously not as destroyed as it would’ve been if it had actually hit the ground after falling five stories. Swallowing, you start to slowly back away, staring at your hands and wondering what the _hell_ just happened when you are seized by two members of the police force. “Come with us, witch.”

 _They think I’m a fucking witch?!_ Because you’re practically the lowest you can get in society, you just hang your head and allow them to take you away, with whispers of _witch_ and _devil’s spawn_ following you along the way. You wonder what Master Ampora and Mistress Peixes will do about your absence when you don’t come back to their manor in a few hours.

As evening falls, you no longer have to wonder—they show up at the station looking for you, and Eridan sticks his nose in the air so high you doubt he can see anything but the ceiling as he pays for your release. Embarrassed and tired, you stay silent as Feferi unbinds your hands, her touch lingering longer than it needs to and shooting you covert glances and smiles as Eridan monologues at the commoners for “consuming too much poppy extract, you’re all bloody mad, no one can pick up pianos with their mind, that’s absurd”.

When you arrive back at the manor, they still haven’t said a word to you, and you’re surprised when instead of dropping you off in the servants’ quarters or hanging you privately in their personal gallows in the garden, they take you to their large bedroom and sit you down on the bed. As Eridan leans against the vanity and lights his pipe, Feferi kneels in front of you, taking your hands in hers. You try not to blush from the contact—she’d even removed her _gloves_ , you haven’t been this intimate with a woman in _years_ —as she implores, “Show us!”

Quirking an eyebrow, you question, “Show you _what_?” After clearing your throat awkwardly, you add, “My Lady.”

“Your… your powers!” she exclaims, grinning. “Your floating ability, your special surprise! Whatever you’d like to call it.”

Sighing, you say, “I apologize, but I don’t even know what happened that allowed me to conjure—”

Eridan moves quickly, chucking a small bust of the late Meenah Peixes right at your head. Once again, you raise your hands and the statue is engulfed in sparking blue and red light. Feferi squeals and claps her hands, and you decide to play with it a little, moving it around the room and figuring out how to lift other things as well. Soon the bust, a hand mirror, Eridan’s pipe, the Holy Bible, and a top hat are all floating around the room, to the awe of yourself and your spectators.

After putting everything down, Feferi drapes herself across your lap as Eridan exits your field of vision. “That was truly _impressive_ , Mr. Captor,” she purrs, reaching up to cup your face in her hands. You feel the bed dip behind you as Eridan climbs on, and he comes to wrap his arms around your waist. The kisses he leaves on the back of your neck send shivers down your spine. “As you could probably tell with our collection near the carriage house,” Feferi continues, leaning in so her breath ghosts against your cheeks, “we simply _love_ exotic pets.”


	3. Kindred Spirits; Eridan/Vriska

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Post apocalyptic dystopian Sci Fi + Pirates

The small cruise ship you commandeered right after the Reckoning has become its own ecosystem in the following years. Your way of life is foolproof: you offer protection, food, shelter, and some luxuries (you keep the pool clean even with the filters on low, turn on the electricity in the casino once every two weeks, and let people organize comedy shows and plays and open mic nights on their time off), and they give you a work force, with _certain_ members even composing your personal pirate crew. In the early days, you found that the cable system that supported lifeboats were also able to hold up regular vessels of a similar size, meaning you took boats from harbors with dead owners, rigged them up with weapons, and BAM, you now have a six ship pirate fleet.

When you wake up one day to your first mate telling you there’s a damn _old-fashioned schooner_ on the horizon, you _have_ to take a look for yourself.

You tell Tavros to have the crew lower your armada into the water. There’s no need to have them drop the anchor; you’ve been stationary for weeks now, two hundred miles out to sea with fuel to last the rest of the month. He scampers away to relay your orders and you stretch, smirking and wondering what kind of adventure today’s going to bring.

After dressing in your long, dark blue coat and black boots, you stick two pistols in your cargo pants pockets and head towards your own personal speedboat. Once you arrive, you give the signal, and all six boats are lowered into the water. You gather your forces in front of the bow of the cruise ship to make sure everyone’s mechanisms are working properly before you lead the charge to the schooner.

It’s a lot bigger up close. At first, you wonder if it’s just a replica ship that got whisked out to sea to rot after the Reckoning, but Tavros radios you to report a spot of movement near the stern of the ship. Just as you order your minions to have their guns ready, all of the sails unfold at once; it’s a brilliant display, probably meant to intimidate you. The crew seems to pop out of nowhere, but there can’t be more than eight of them; that’s not nearly enough people to run a ship of this size.

Snorting, you pick up your radio transmitter and order Jake to get out the big guns. He responds with a perky, “Aye aye, Captian Serket!” You watch as he readies the arsenal of your largest boat. Instead of cannons, you have rocket launchers and mustard gas; these guys aren’t going to be ready for you, that’s for sure.

You motion for everyone else to hang back a little, and you drive right up to the side of the schooner, so close you could reach out and touch the wooden paneling. A head pokes over the side—he’s a lad your age with dark hair, a bleached streak through the center, glasses, and a long, ragged scar puckering the skin of his right cheek. Though his eyes are a bright blue, they’re too narrowed and judging to remind you of John’s. “What do you want, wench?” he calls down to you.

Scoffing, you say, “I want all your supplies! And if you cooperate, Jake won’t have to blow you to smithereens.” You point at English and his arsenal, and he notices, grinning and waving.

“Are you guys fuckin’ _pirates_?” the schooner dude demands.

“Hell yeah!” you yell back.

He snorts. “I’m the one in the bloody pirate ship. You just have some fancy speed boats.”

“And fancy weapons,” you retort.

You see his shoulders heave as he sighs. “Come aboard, I’d like to negotiate. And you don’t need to worry about getting shot or anything like that, we ran out of ammunition weeks ago. Laser weapons don’t last long at sea, the salinity fucks with the stabilizers.”

Well, it’s a good thing you stuck with electronic, if you could believe him. Normally, you don’t make agreements with the people you’re plundering, but hell, you want to know why he has a fucking _schooner_. “All right, I’ll come up! Get ready for a rigorous debate, Scarface!”

They throw a rope down and you tell Tavros to order a strike if you’re not back in fifteen minutes. Once you grasp on, they haul you up, and the Captain—well, you _assume_ he’s the Captain, he was doing all the yelling—extends a hand to help you over the railing. “Welcome aboard,” he greets, and from up close you can tell how fucking _tired_ he looks. “Come into my quarters and we can discuss this.”

“Woah,” you say, flipping your hair back, “time has taught me not to go into small spaces alone with weird men I don’t even know.”

“I see the guns in your pockets,” he deadpans, turning on his heel and walking towards the stern. “If I do anything uncouth, shoot me.”

You can’t argue with that logic. After throwing a thumbs up to Tavros, you follow the Captain. “So how’d you get your hands on a fucking schooner?” you ask.

“My father ran a company that made upgrades to these sorts of ships—Spaceage Ship Tech, you might’ve heard of it—and once the Reckoning happened, well… The woman who this belonged to wasn’t around to pick it up.” He glances at you over his shoulder. “If it would help with negotiations, I’ll show you how it’s controlled.”

“Sure,” you say nonchalantly, like you don’t actually have a metaphorical boner right now. His dad owned _SST_ , holy shit! When you were twelve or thirteen, you used to go on their website and look at their high-tech designs for hours on end, dreaming of owning a boat like one of those. A boat like _this_.

These days, though, you’re pretty damn happy with your cruise ship.

He takes you to a room near the back that you think is above the Captain’s quarters. It has a large window taking up the whole front wall that looks out over the deck and a control panel that’s started to rust, but the screens still glow faintly with blue light. He starts pointing things out. “Here’s the blueprint interface that shows any issues with the ship and recommends repairs, there’s the radar, this screen controls the sails and the rudder…”

The Captain goes on and on for about two minutes, and you have to admit you’re _fascinated_. You feel like you’re in younger you’s teenage wet dream. You ask questions every few sentences, and he nods and explains and when he’s done with his spiel, he directs you to his quarters so you can sit down and chat about your impending takeover.

There’s a desk in the corner of his room, and he gives you that chair while he sits on the bed. You look around, observing lots of nautical memorabilia that was probably leftover from the old owner, but you can’t help but notice a few personal items—a blue laser rifle that, apparently, doesn’t work anymore; a smartphone that died long ago; what you think is a prom photo behind cracked glass, with the Captain in a tux wrapping his arms around a girl with long brown hair and a fuchsia dress as they both grin in delight. He looks about five years younger, and he definitely lacks the large scar that’s so prominent on his face now, as well as the defeatist attitude.

With a sigh that seems to seep straight into his bones, he crosses his arms over his chest defensively and says, “Look, a long time ago, I would’ve fought you tooth and nail for this ship, but… we’ve lost a lot of people. We’re almost out of food. In the past month, we’ve had just as many deaths from suicide than we’ve had from sickness. There’s just… God, there’s just no meaning to this anymore, and I—”

He chokes up, looking exhausted and utterly wrecked, and even though people say you don’t have a compassionate bone in your body, something in your chest pulls and you reach forward to take his hand. He flinches at the contact, and when he looks up, an ashamed scowl pulling at his lips, you ask, “What’s your name?”

“Eridan,” he replies, gulping. “Eridan Ampora.”

“I’m Vriska,” you respond, squeezing his hand. His fingers curl tighter around yours in response. You nod at the picture on his desk, and he bites his lip. “Who was she?”

“Fef,” he says, taking a shuddering breath. “She was my first mate.”

Snorting lightly, you say, “Oh, I know all about those. My current one is Tavros, and he couldn’t find his own ass in the dark. I lost my best one about a year ago. John.” A bittersweet smile works its way onto your face. To make this less mushy, you snark, “He was probably worth ten of you.”

“And she was worth your entire fuckin’ armada,” he snaps back, and you think he needed that bit of aggression. He seems more confident as he lets go of your hand and leans back. Meeting your eye for the first time, he lifts his eyebrows and questions, “You got room for a couple more on that ship of yours?”

“Yeah,” you say, nodding. You’d never admit this out loud, but you think you just found a kindred spirit. “Definitely.”


	4. Shades; Dave/Dirk

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: space opera + Bildungsroman

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To avoid some confusion, Dirk's bro is alpha!Dave and Dave's bro is beta!Dirk. It works, somehow.

The colony you live on with your Bro is small but bustling. The moment you could walk, you began stumbling around shipyards, watching the military and trade ships with wide-eyed awe that was blocked by your shades. Sunglasses were a necessity on the asteroid because of its proximity to the binary center of the solar system, and your triangle-shaped ones certainly made you stand out as you toddled around in the crowd.

Bro didn’t worry about you getting lost or abducted. Everyone knew everyone around here, and if someone witnessed one of the people just passing through trying to speak to you, they’d know to step in. So you were able to watch the mechanical ecosystem work, the robots in the loading bay, the austere captains and wily troops. You were going to be a part of the fleet one day, you swore to yourself. Even at the young age of three you wanted the technology and the excitement and the adventure.

One stiflingly hot day, your Bro took you aside and gave you a small training sword; you’d admired his blade full of gears and heat from afar, but he’d never allowed you so close to any sort of weapon before. “Hey Dirk, little man,” he said, holding the hilt out to you, “you’re gonna learn to strife, and you’re gonna beat everyone on this goddamned rock.”

You took the training blade as reverently as if it were the real thing, holding it delicately in your hands. It was heavier than you expected it to be, though not as hefty as the monkey wrench in Bro’s tool kit you sometimes played with. You were going to master this thing and get yourself a real sword—that was certain.

~

When you’re sixteen and you’re taking a shuttle to the main planet in the system to join the fleet, you wonder if this was a mistake. You don’t dwell on it for too long— _thinking about things too much_ , your Bro used to tell you before his death, _sets you up for failure_. Upon arriving, you’re sorted into your engineering-track cohort, and the only other dude wearing sunglasses catches your eye. He’s heading into infantry, the deadliest division, and you think he’s looking at you too, because he nods his head slightly.

You nod back, and when you get on the academy ship where you’ll spend the next four years of your life, you prepare to forget about him.

And you obviously don’t forget, because when you’re assigned to a cruiser upon graduation, you recognize him immediately.

~

Politics were a thing you’d always stayed away from, so while you know all the facts and statistics surrounding the War of Empires, you don’t know anything about the _feel_ of it. That’s why you’re surprised by your fiery captain as he deploys warships and fights with a vigor that was unknown to you previously. It makes you wonder about morality and meaning and how emotions are tied to fighting, and how millions of people have died on either side simply because of wounded human pride. You think about the futility of it as you repair launch tunnels and make sure everything in your miniscule jurisdiction is functioning smoothly.

You do your job well. The engineers maintaining the shields do not.

When you are invaded, there’s screaming and running and chaos, just like one would imagine. All engineers except for the elite (which you are not) are ordered back to their quarters for lockdown, but you don’t listen. You stop by just long enough to grab your long, sleek katana before heading towards the bulk of the fighting.

The saying “never bring a knife to a laser-cannon fight” comes to mind as you stand on the catwalk above the warship docks. The cruiser is home to a hundred of smaller ships made for blood and battle, but all save for a few have been deployed. Your new home is left defenseless as aliens with disintegration technology lay waste to everything around you.

Most people would run, and you do too. But instead of running _away_ , you run into the fray.

Hackling and slashing isn’t mindless. It’s structured: each one of your movements has been carefully choreographed within the milliseconds you have to make decisions. You manage to take down more enemies than the infantrymen with their guns, and when one of said infantrymen finds himself cornered by a beast with a bazooka, you don’t hesitate before slicing it into two neat halves.

When you look down at the guy you saved, you’re surprised to see it’s the other shades dude. He’d not wearing his sunglasses now, and neither are you, but you recognize him all the same. You find yourself holding out a hand to help him up, and there’s some sort of finality in his grip that makes you think that maybe you’ve grown up since you were the little boy staring awestruck at courier ships. Because your structure of thinking never modified itself too much, you were never really certain. It feels obvious now, though.

“You know,” he says, and you see the name on his uniform is _Dave Strider_ , “I can fight pretty well with a sword, too. We should combine forces and turn this bloodbath into a cool dude-dominated slice-n-dice orgy.”

You can’t quite hold back a small smirk when you say, “Find yourself a sword and you’ve got a deal.”


	5. Clue: Live; Eridan/Tavros

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Game show and murder mystery

“Welcome back to Clue: Live!” the orb-headed host says, folding his hands primly in front of him as the studio audience cheers. When he speaks, his mouth doesn’t move, because he doesn’t have one and even though you’ve been watching this show for years before becoming a player, it’s disconcerting. “Before the commercial break, we saw that Miss Serket was able to discern something _very_ important about what object was used to commit murder. Now, it’s Mr. Nitram’s turn.

“As always, the tablets the contestants are using are connected to our server, and thus the data they’ve gathered is displayed on the bottom of your television screen so you know how close they are to figuring out the culprit, the venue, and the murder weapon. Tavros,” he turns to face you, his pressed green suit hardly moving a hair as he spins around, “would you like to roll or solve?”

“Um…” you consider, scratching the back of your neck and trying not to look at your boyfriend, who’s starting at you from two contestant podiums over, waiting to see what you’ll do. Swallowing, you glance at your tablet one more time before deciding, “I’d like to solve. If that’s okay.”

“Of course it is, of course it is!” the host says, and the crowd goes wild. Gamzee was the last person to try, and his guess was pretty ridiculous, since he made it during the first round. Maybe he just wanted to get losing over with. “Go right ahead.”

The lights dim, and three spotlights come shining down on you. It’s stupidly dramatic, you think. “I think that…” You have to take a deep breath for continuing, because Eridan is going to be so mad at you over this. “I think Eridan did it,” you say, finally drawing up some confidence, and the onlookers gasp, “with the wand, in the living room.”

There’s a dramatic pause, and no one moves. You risk a glance at Eridan, hardly moving your head to see him, and he’s scowling harder than you’ve ever seen. And he scowls a _lot_.

Doc Scratch finally pulls out the card that has the winning combination on it, just like he did when Gamzee hypothesized, and he looks at it for too long before saying, “Mr. Nitram, you are correct! You’ve won!”

The crowd cheers, and you can’t help but smile. You won a game show! Granted, Terezi isn’t here so there wasn’t tough competition, but you _won_!

When you look at Eridan again, he’s slack-jawed and embarrassed, and you just want to hug him for a while. As the host wraps an arm around your shoulders to the audience’s exuberant cheers, you promise to split your prize money with him, since you just outed him as a murderer.


	6. Clusterfuck; Eridan/Karkat/Sollux

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Alternian romance novel (quadrant vacillations and all) crossed with high school au

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one's definitely an M, with some minor sexual content and underage.

It started as a necessary auspisticism. Eridan and Sollux chose the most unfortunate times to tear at each other: in the middle of geometry class, halfway through a Mythbusters episode in physics, at the center of the cafeteria for all to see. They were in danger of being expelled before you stepped in to metaphorically make them sit the fuck down and shut the fuck up. They were too dangerous for a kismesissitude.

Or so you thought.

Within the month, somehow the three of you managed to work your way into some sort of fucked up black threesome. You didn’t even really know it was happening until you were at Eridan’s hive after homecoming, and watching shitty science fiction movies on his bed turned into a three-way sloppy makeout session. With each of your hands shoved down a different troll’s pants as the two assholes made sure hickeys covered your neck and shoulders, you realized how far off the deep end you were.

You three stayed black for a while. You and Sollux would constantly harass each other on Trollian, and when Eridan felt neglected he’d corner Sollux in the hallway between classes or sit on your desk as you read one of your trashy (wonderful) romance novels and mock you for your taste in literature. One way or another, you thought this fucked up version of kismesissitude would work.

But then you flipped red for Eridan, and everything changed.

When you told him, he seemed relieved before venturing, “You’re sure your feelings aren’t a bit more on the… _paler_ side of things, Kar?”

So while you and Eridan got stuck in a pale-red limbo, Sollux was still fucking both of you black. Unlike your uncertainty with Eridan, you were completely sure you’d die hating this asshole. For Christ’s sake, one day he cornered you in the showers after gym class and made you so turned on you thought you’d burst, stroking your bulge and nipping at your collarbones, but before you could come he just _left you there_ , a withering mess of revulsion. How could you not hate someone like that?

You’re worried you hate him more than he hates you, since he also has Eridan to fire him up, but when you voice that fear to Eridan he tells you you’re being ridiculous. “And if that’s the case,” he went on to say, “then my plans for a wriggling day threesome next week will be _ruined_.”

Sollux turns eight sweeps, and as planned, you and Eridan fuck him into oblivion. Later, as your kismesis lays passed out and buck naked at the foot of the concupiscent platform and you’re content, wrapped in Eridan’s arms, you don’t care what kind of quadrant clusterfuck this is. It works.


	7. Don't You Forget About Me; Karkat/Terezi

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: 80s teen romance and zombie apocalypse

As you hold the boom box above your head, you struggle to press “play”. When you finally do, the volume is so low _you_ can barely hear it, let alone Terezi on the second floor inside her damn house, so you growl and drop it to your shoulder, crank up the volume, and hold it up once again.

It takes a minute, but soon you see the pearly white curtains rustle, and then she’s opening the window and poking her head out. “Hey, shut up down there with the cheesy pop music, _some_ people are trying to sleep!”

“And _some_ people like cheesy pop music!” you can’t help but retort.

She pauses, her mouth twisting into a shape vaguely resembling a question mark. “Karkat?”

“Yes, Karkat,” you huff. Your arms are starting to shake from holding this damn contraption. “I am trying to woo you with shitty radio tunes. Is it working?”

“Well…” she ponders. She sniffs loudly, and you see her shoulders tense as her nose takes in another large gulp of air. “Do you smell something dead?”

You know she has a better sense of smell than you do to help compensate for the fact she’s blind as a fucking bat, but now that she’s mentioned it, you _do_ smell a bit of rotting flesh. As you open your mouth to yell something back, you’re tackled from behind.

The boom box bounces once on the grass before hitting her driveway with a loud clattering noise. You yell wordlessly, shoving the _thing_ clawing at you, and Terezi calls out, “Karkat, are you okay?”

“Stay inside!” you scream back, punching the creature in the face repeatedly. This doesn’t seem to deter it. “There’s a fucking _zombie_ out here!”

“No way!” she exclaims with something that sounds like _glee_. “I’ll be right down!”

“Terezi _no_!” You turn around just in time for her window to slam shut.

Your movement gave the zombie a window to lunge, and its decaying teeth clamp down on the bit of skin between your neck and shoulder. You can’t even scream as you bash it in the face with your elbow, and this time, its jaw falls off. You would’ve _loved_ it if that happened earlier, so it wouldn’t have been able to _bite you_.

After you kick the thing in the chest, Terezi comes barreling out of the front door, her cane in one hand and a fucking _katana_ in the other. “I’m _so glad_ I borrowed this from Dave!” she exclaims. “Tell me where to hack and slash so I don’t hit you!”

It doesn’t matter if she accidentally cuts you in half or not. Either way, you’re done for.


	8. Little Red Riding Hood; Jade/Jane

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Fractured fairy tale + Psychological Horror

Going to visit your Poppop is always a grand journey. His “eccentric housing location” (that’s what your dad calls it, you just like to say “he’s a hermit”) is in the middle of the woods, and the path you have to take isn’t wide enough to drive a car on and it’s too filled with roots to use a bike, so you have to walk two or so miles. Today, you park your light blue Volkswagen beetle in the lot in front of the old joke shop, check his mail for him—it’s all junk—and begin the trek.

Ten minutes into the walk, it starts to rain. You’d prepared for this: Washington is an incredibly rainy state, so you knew it’d probably start drizzling at _some_ point. After a few seconds of digging in your backpack, you find your bright red raincoat buried under some of your detective gear and put it on.

When you’re about halfway there, you see another path. You know which one leads to your poppop’s house, of course, but you _know_ the new divergence wasn’t there a few weeks ago, and your interest is piqued. What kind of sleuth would you be if you didn’t investigate?

The rain tapers off, but you keep the red coat on, hood still up, just in case it starts again. Going a hundred or so feet down the path leads to nothing—it just meanders onwards into the trees with no end in sight. Since Poppop is expecting you, you decide to visit him first and check it out later.

You turn around, and even after ten minutes of walking, you do not come across the original path. Once you realize you’re horribly lost, everything starts to go wrong.

Things rustle in the bushes, and when you whip around to look you see shadows but no creatures. A couple of times a minute, you swear you hear heavy panting right by your ear, but when you startle you see there’s nothing there. Mist settles in, like it often does in the forest after it rains, but even though you’re usually enamored by how mystical it makes everything look, you wonder what horrors it’s hiding.

The barking starts as night falls. You’ve been stuck out here for hours now, and as far as you know, no one has come to look for you. In the distance, you start to hear the telltale signs of dogs, howling and barking at the full moon bearing down on you, and you go towards them, hoping for civilization despite the shivers travelling down your spine.

You hear every noise in the underbrush. Each one of your footsteps sounds like a cannon blast, and the creatures rustling around you, always out of sight, make you hunch in on yourself. You’ve been using the light on your phone to see the path—there isn’t any goddamned cell service out here or you would’ve been rescued _ages_ ago—but after three hours spent treading through darkness, the battery dies, and the noises in the woods seem to multiply.

“It’s all in your head, Jane,” you tell yourself, because all you want is to hear a friendly human voice. “Nothing out here is going to get you.”

“That’s not true. _BARK_!”

You’ve never been a screamer, but you shriek all the same, staggering backwards and turning your head to the side to see what had whispered in your ear.

It…it’s a girl.

But she doesn’t look _normal_. Her skin is a deep gray and she’s clothed in a tattered black dress; a pair of dog ears perched on the top of her head, twitching slightly as they picked up sound; her jade green eyes stand out from her dour silhouette, and they widen when you don’t immediately run away. Though there’s a shine of intelligence and something you’d almost call _lust_ in them, you can also sense something bestial.

“Oh,” she says, beginning to circle you. Subtly, you slip your hand into your raincoat pocket and try to find something to use as a weapon. Your jeans are covered, sadly, so you can’t get at your keys. You have nothing to defend yourself with besides your fists. “Has Little Red Riding Hood lost her way?”

“Who are you?” you demand.

Her snarling grin reveals fangs. “The Big Bad Wolf, of course.”


	9. Fleeting; Eridan/Equius

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Propaganda + Extraterrestrial

After you turned ten and Fef went into hiding, you tried to determine what job in the Fleet would be best for you. You’ve always been good at tactics, strategy, and military history, so you’re practically the goddamn poster child for admiralty. And you would’ve gone to the Officer Training Academy, too, if it weren’t for your stupid engineer matesprit (being light-years from your moirail is going to be hard enough, you don’t need to be leagues away from Eq as well). Since he ended up in a technical academy ship, you looked for other programs they hosted in the same sub-fleet, and you found one for navigation.

So that’s how you ended up here, in a huge ship with more adults than you’ve ever seen, propaganda posters plastered all over the walls, most of which bear the Condesce’s face. Though you admire her as a conqueror, you don’t exactly _like_ her, seeing as she’s constantly trying to have Fef assassinated ever since she refused to duel upon Ascension.

On the first day of class, you’re put with about fifty other budding navigators in a dark room and are forced to watch some dumb introduction video. “ _Welcome to the Great Alternian Fleet_!” the peppy narrator says. “ _Just like the rest of your cohort, you have taken the first step to become an active member of the largest empire in the galaxy! Did you know that just in the past five sweeps, we’ve conquered nineteen alien species, and completely obliterated thirty-two whole planets that showed signs of life? That just goes to show that being a part of the Fleet is the best thing there is, and I—as well as Her Imperious Condescension—are so proud of you for managing not to get culled yet!”_

You zone out after that. You almost fall asleep, but you manage to jerk yourself awake before you nod off; you know for sure the staff wouldn’t hesitate to cull you as an example. Two hours later, the video is over, and you get assigned a bunkroom that’s probably the size of your closet back at your hive, plus you have to share it with three other trolls (fuckin’ gross). You thought the Empire was supposed to cater to highbloods—and sea dwellers in particular—not stuff them into sardine cans.

In three days, your ship docks at the spiral station with the rest of your sub-fleet, and you immediately go find Equius. Surprisingly, when you get off your ship and follow the crowd into the main hub of the station, you see your first aliens.

The numerous tentacles on one remind you of Gl’bgolyb, so you scowl at that guy and give him a wide berth. A bee the size of your head almost crashes into you, and you think if Sollux were here to witness it, he’d cream his fucking pants. After you hiss at a furry thing that nearly trips you with its mop, you find Eq.

He’s sitting at a table in the corner of the food court, hands folded demurely on the metal table. His gaze seems to be fixed straight ahead, but since he’s wearing his cracked sunglasses, you can’t tell where he’s _really_ looking. You approach him, ignoring the chair across the table from him and sliding into his lap. “God I’m so glad I got out of there, I was ready to strangle all of my blockmates—”

“Eridan,” he says, and you feel his skin begin to moisten where you have your arms wrapped around his neck, “how many times have I requested that we keep all affection to _private_ areas?”

“Not enough to make it sink in, obviously,” you tell him, pecking him on the cheek. When he remains rigid, you sigh petulantly before slinking off his lap and into the seat opposite him. “Fine, happy?”

Almost shyly, he reaches across the table to take your hands. Almost suggestively, his eyebrows raise. “I’ll be happier when we’re alone.”

By the heat that begins to build in your groin, you know the sooner you find a broom closet in an abandoned hallway, the better.


	10. Miscreants; Kanaya/Vriska

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Heist movie and _Vogue_

Your brand of fashion is the perfect distraction.

Well, according to Vriska it is. You don’t like to think about her heists too hard, because stealing is something you’re morally against, but these people are so _rich_. You think if you donate part of your share of the earnings to some non-profit charity, the depravity of the act balances out.

(Or at least, that’s what you think to yourself when you’re at the synagogue with your mother as she praises your accomplishments to her friends and the rabbi.)

Tonight, you’re wearing a dress you’ve manufactured to make yourself look like a peacock, the elaborate train hand-crafted from real feathers. The museum exhibition you’re attending is an extravagant occasion, but none of the other attendees are dressed as beautifully as you, and you’re sure no one else made their own outfit.

As you purposely draw the attention of everyone in one particular hallway, no one sees Vriska swipe a Greek centuries-old bust from a platform and replace it with a copy. Not even _you_ notice when she does it, but when she leaves the hall, you meet her eye and she smirks, so you know she accomplished the task.

Hours later, you’re back at the hotel room, painstakingly removing your dress without damaging it. Vriska helps you with the ribbons of the corset and holds it up as you step out of it, and together you hang it on the tall model you have to keep it on so the feathered train isn’t ruined. “This heist was almost _too_ easy,” she brags as she nods her head toward the balcony. You follow, and once you’re leaning against the iron railing with her, she takes out a pack of cigarettes, lighting one for you first—that’s the closest she’ll come to saying “thank you” for allowing the heist to go so smoothly—and then getting out another one for her to smoke. As you stand there, taking drags and staring out over the Seine, Vriska says, “I could live this kind of life forever. I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of the adrenaline rush I get when I realize I got away clean.”

“We’ll have to stop eventually,” you say, a bit stung that she used _I_ instead of _we_. You’re a team, Vriska Serket and Kanaya Maryam, but you think she’d rather get shot than admit that.

“Nah, fussy fangs,” she says, nudging you in the side with her elbow, “we’re in this for life.”

 _Or we’ll get locked away for life_. Sighing quietly, you take another drag of your cigarette, wishing desperately you didn’t love her so you wouldn’t have to put up with such a miscreant.


	11. Pitch; Equius/Sollux

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Dystopian Future meets 1930s Noir Detective Story

When someone knocks on somebody else’s door, it’s supposed to be polite. They’re warning the person inside of their impending barging, for Ford’s sake, the gesture is meant to be _courteous_ , or at the very least considerate.

Equius Zahhak knocks like he wants to punch a hole through your door.

You want to toss him out of the building with your psionics, but you keep in mind that he’s a rich client and refrain. “Come in,” you say harshly, lighting another cigarette and sticking it between your teeth just so you can blow smoke in his face later.

“Have you made any progress?” Equius demands, throwing the door open so it hits the wall and slamming it behind him. You’re about 50% sure he’s doing it just to irritate you—the other half of you thinks he’s just worried about his missing moirail.

“Of course,” you respond, your upper lip twitching into a snarl.

 _“Then why haven’t you alerted me?”_ he stresses, leaning on your desk and curling his hands into fists. You wonder what would happen if he decided to deck you like he punches out the robots he fights in the Lower Ring for “stress relief”. You’d probably have to fry his brain, and that would be too bad; he’s actually a half-decent kismesis, though his casteism is pretty damn off-putting.

You take another drag and, as you planned earlier, lean forward to blow smoke right into his face. He doesn’t wince because he knows you’d delight in that, but you smirk anyway. “My data scan only yielded results ten minutes ago, calm your seeping utters.” You sit back down properly so you have space to pull the holographic model up on your desk. A chunk of the Lower Ring is displayed—particularly, an area deep in Felt territory. “Nepeta went with Gamzee to a bar at approximately 21:43 last Saturday. GZ was a frequent visitor, but since NP was a fresh meat, they took her back for initiation, and Gamzee didn’t know that would happen because it wasn’t a thing when he started going to the bar years ago. I’m honestly surprised she wasn’t able to fight her own way out, but I’d guess they put something in her drink.”

Equius is quaking with suppressed rage, sweat rolling off him in beads. “Give me the address,” he breathes.

“I’ll do even better than that,” you sigh, turning of your hologram and standing. “I’ll take you straight to her. You seriously think I’d let you go in there alone?”

He swallows, and as you put on your coat, you grumble that he better appreciate what a damn good kismesis you are.


	12. Medical Booze Can't Fix This; Aradia/Kanaya

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: post-apocalyptic + medical drama

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Since there are a lot of warnings for this chapter, here they are: blood, amputation mention, animal death, character death, mutilation, alcohol

The Wasteland is always hard to get across. It’s inevitable that someone would be injured by one of the numerous plague-ridden beasties that lurk in the cracks in the earth; those things are fast, agile, and vicious. When a group of wild dogs charges your trekking party, you’re expecting them. Your chainsaw is in your hands the second you hear frenzied barking, and your travelling companions are ready as well.

Once the fight is over, you sit down amongst the carcasses, panting. Though feral dogs are pretty low on the food chain in the Wasteland—there are much bigger beasts you try to stay away from at all costs—taking them out is still rather exerting. Closing your eyes, you think you’ll be able to relax for a minute before you hear someone yell, “ _Kanaya_!”

Sighing, you get up immediately, leaving your chainsaw on the ground because most of your group has collapsed around you, so you figure you won’t be moving on in the next few minutes. You jog over to where Rose is waving you down; she’s crouched in front of Aradia, who’s clutching at her arm.

…Oh no.

Dropping next to them, you gingerly remove Aradia’s other hand and hold her arm like you’re handing something incredibly delicate. One of the dogs managed to take a chunk of flesh out of it, and you know what kind of disease sits on their teeth. Gulping, you tell Rose, “John’s carrying the water, get some from him.”

She goes to fetch it, and you pull your bag off your back and dig around, finding the last bit of sterile gauze you have and a stained, stretched Ace bandage from Before. The dog bit too deep for you to do stitches with the small bit of surgical thread you have, so the best you can do is dump some alcohol in it, bandage it correctly, and pray the dogs weren’t infected with T-strain.

“I can’t believe one got me,” Aradia says softly. When you look at her face, you don’t see pain registering in her expression. She seems dazed, almost detached. You exhale slowly, patting her knee in comfort. You’ll probably have to evaluate her for shock once you’re done with the wound.

There’s already blood all over her by the time you dig the bottle of medical booze out of your pack. You’re sparing with it, using just enough to cover the whole gouge because there isn’t much of it left, and once that’s done you press gauze into the missing chunk and wrap the bandage around it. All the while, Aradia has started to twitch, and that does not bode well.

You swallow and force yourself to meet her gaze. There’s a calm resignation in her eyes as she says, “The dogs had T-strain, didn’t they?”

“We don’t know for sure,” you say, taking her hand. Rose comes back with a small container of water, and you make Aradia drink. You’ll have to throw that cup away later; you can’t risk spreading infection.

Aradia chokes on a sip, spraying water all over the Wasteland ground as she coughs. You can’t help but notice the slightly pink tinge of the water, and your stomach drops.

T-strain sets in _fast_. If that dog was a carrier—and now you’re almost certain it was—she’ll be dead in five minutes.

Unless you amputate her arm.

“Rose, get my chainsaw,” you demand, and as Aradia continues to hack, her eyes widen.

She shakes her head, trying to get her coughing fit under control. She manages, but her voice is still weak, “It do-doesn’t matter anymore, th-the infe-infection has already set i-i—” She coughs again, and the fluid that flies from her lips is a much deeper red. “You can’t save me like you saved Tavros.”

Your chainsaw is being pressed into your hands, and as you look over at Rose, her mouth is set into a grim line. You see the _no_ plainly written into her eyes.

Gulping, you set the chainsaw aside and settle in beside Aradia. Rose leans against her other side and you both support her as she hacks and spasms, and when her breathing ceases, you move on.


	13. Colonoscopy; Signless/Psiioniic

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: dystopian + espionage movies

“Are you sure you can do this?” the Psiioniic asks, quirking an eyebrow skeptically.

“I have faith in my abilities,” you say tersely, resisting the urge to swallow. You can’t tell what’s behind his opaque red and blue computer lenses, but you think he’s staring straight at you, appraising. It’s not an expression you’re unused to; when you’re the lowest of the low, people spend a lot of time assessing you.

After a too long stretch of silence, the Psiioniic reaches out his fist. You hold your hand under it, and he lets the microchip fall into your palm. “Lose it and you’re dead.” A smirk pulls at the edges of his lips as he adds, “And I’d really rather not send in the kill order. I’ve gotten rather attached to you.”

You know that’s the truth. You’ve been “running errands” for Mituna Captor’s black market tech ring for years now, and he’s admitted to you (when he was blackout drunk, of course) that he would do absolutely anything for you. He puts on a cool façade at work to please his supervisors, but one thing you’ve come to learn about the Psiioniic is he’s a total dweeb.

“I’ll set up the connection before sunrise, just like always,” you assure him. “Who cares that I’m basically shoving a camera up Big Brother’s ass? I can do a colonoscopy just as well as I can do an appendectomy or implant.”

His laugh is harsh, but the look he gives you as his glasses fall down his nose is fond. “Take your shitty metaphors and fuck off. And don’t forget to turn on your earpiece!”

Breaking into the local Inner Party headquarters is hard, as one would expect. You know how to avoid the constant surveillance, though. You know every trick in the book, so you’re able to slip in, use Mituna’s guidance in your ear to navigate your way past errant employees, and plant the microchip before you’re detected. The entire process of getting in and out of the building takes about an hour, and you’re strolling back into the Psiioniic’s office _way_ before sunrise.

“Did the chip integrate successfully?” you question as you lean on the edge of his desk.

“I don’t see any problems,” he says, and you can hear the relief in his tone even though you can’t see it on his face. In a rare display of workplace affection, he reaches over to place his hand on top of yours. You know what he wants to say even though his lips don’t form the words, and you sit together in silence, wondering what either of you will do when you inevitably screw up and get caught.


	14. Sylph of Space; Eridan/Kanaya

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Golden Age of Comics Books/The Dark Age of Comic Books

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one is rated M for sexual content

Vriska would never admit she’s your sidekick, but that’s what she is—she lets criminals get away too often (probably because _she_ was once a villain and she still has an appreciation for them) to be a hero. As you frantically look around, the Prince of Hope is nowhere to be seen, and when you turn to glare at the Thief of Light, she holds up her hands defensively and says, “If we got him arrested, who the hell would we fight?”

You hold back a sigh. Vriska never takes the blame for any of her wrongdoings, and that irks you to no end. You’ve tried to get her to change into the better person you know she can be, but when you try to meddle, she always tries to make you change your superhero name to Fussy Fangs.

As you jump from the roof of the department store and the people that had once been held hostage begin filtering out, someone yells, “It’s the Sylph of Space! She saved us!”

People start cheering and running up to you to ask for selfies and autographs, and you decline the former but indulge them in the latter. You act coy in front of the news cameras and answer a few questions vaguely, taking a moment to bask in the citizens’ love. When Vriska starts subtly mind-controlling people so they trip over their own two feet, you think it’s time to go home.

Even though your apartment is only fifteen minutes down the road, it takes an hour to get there because of how you have to shake your hero personas and drop back into the identities of Kanaya Maryam and Vriska Serket. The second you get back, Vriska goes to shower and change, and soon she’s leaving you alone in the apartment to go clubbing.

It doesn’t take long for him to arrive. You’re ashamed that the image of his silhouette leaning against the railing of your balcony with the city as his backdrop is a familiar one. Gritting your teeth, you approach the sliding glass door to let him in.

“Got any scotch?” is the first thing he asks, and acid bubbles in your stomach.

“You know where it is,” you say quietly, and you both hear the suppressed venom in your tone but he ignores it, heading into your kitchen and standing on his tiptoes to reach the bottle on the top of your refrigerator. He gets two glasses from the cabinet and ice from your freezer and you approach slowly, holding back the urge to punch him into next week. Eridan—you know his true name, not even his secret identity, and being on such familiar terms with a maniac makes you feel ill—holds out a glass to you and you take it in both hands.

Drinking makes your lips and hips looser, so you don’t feel completely disgraced by your actions until the next day. You still second-guess yourself as you grab him by the collar, dragging him into your bedroom, and when you shove him down on the bed you rip his shirt open so most of the buttons pop off. He laughs at your lack of control over your strength, and to shut him up you kiss him roughly, teeth clashing against teeth and your nails digging into his shoulders.

The moans and hisses you receive from him are hard-earned, and having your greatest enemy docile beneath you makes you burn. As you leave hickies on his throat and fuck him until he cries, you hate yourself much more than you hate him.


	15. Wizard is a Gender-Neutral Term; Roxy&Fefetasprite

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Road Trip Movie + High Fantasy

“ _Witch_!”  
  
The peasants scatter, leaving you and the pompous knight alone in the center of the town square. You curl your fingers tighter around your staff, rolling your eyes. “Oh,  _please_! I’m a  _wizard_! There’s a difference, ya noob.”  
  
Blinking hard, the knight unsheathes his sword and says hesitantly, “But… but you’re a woman.”  
  
“Well  _yeah_ ,” you scoff, cocking your hip out and putting your free hand on it, “but that doesn’t mean I’m automatically a witch. The magical hierarchy is actually a really intricate system—”  
  
“She’s trying to distract you with words!” someone from the crowd yells. “She must be some sort of silvertongue!”  
  
“Oh. My. God,” you deadpan, and you hear multiple gasps and mutterings about how you cursed the Lord’s name. “Look, I don’t want any trouble, so just let me get my horse and I’ll be on my way.” The gemstone at the head of your staff glows pink, and you move your hand so your thumb is pressing into it.  
  
The feeling of anticipation and glee fills you, and that’s how you know Fefeta is itching for a fight. Magical powers come from many different sources, but yours comes from a sprite named Fefeta. She’s bubbly and fun and tells really good stories about evil warlocks and centaurs, plus she’s the only one of your friends that hasn’t left you behind. She likes a good brawl—she says they give her a nice thrill.  
  
It seems the shining gemstone spooked the onlookers, because the crowd parts so you can access the stables at the south side of the square. The knight looks around frantically, trying to find support, but you just push past him and set out at a steady jog to find your horse.  
  
Two miles outside of town, no one is in sight. Fefeta figures now is a good time to show herself, so misty pink starts to leak from the top of your staff, coiling around you and forming features until she’s practically in your lap, her tail wrapped around your waist and leaning against the neck of the horse. Though she has no weight, you can still feel a slight amount of pressure where she’s touching you.  
  
As her lips slide into a pout, you immediately defend yourself, “Hey, if I turned every moron we encountered on this incredibly long journey into a tree, we’d still be in Riften. Seriously, there are too many imbeciles for us to bother with all of them.”  
  
Fefeta yawns, and you can practically hear her say  _boring_. You nudge the horse into a canter, grumbling, “Then next time, you can fight the idiots all by yourself.”


	16. Drone; Eridan/Sollux

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Mystery and Scifi

“Where did it go?”

You pull up the hologram on your tablet, scanning the sky. The drone you’d sent up is nowhere to be seen. “Fuck, I don’t know.”

“Sol, where the _fuck_ did it go?!”

“ _I just said I don’t know_!”

Taking a breath, you calm yourself down. Snapping at your dumb rich client isn’t going to get you paid. Eridan Ampora—the son of the Orphaner that began the Purge and made it so adults under Sub-Level 9 could no longer stay on the colony of Terra—taps his foot impatiently, his omnipresent scowl deepening (if that was even possible). He adjusts his glasses, and you see him flick night-vision mode on, and you wait _somewhat_ patiently as he does a scan that’s way weaker than the one you already performed.

He sighs harshly, and the green tinge disappears from his lenses. “It’s gone.”

“Yeah, I already figured that out,” you can’t help but snap.

Eridan fixes you with a look that says this is all your fault (and honestly, it might be, since you were the one who was supposed to be controlling the damn thing, God is there anything you don’t fuck up?) before pulling his tablet out of his bag and bringing up a map. “Find out the coordinates of its last location on the colony grid and ping them over to me. If it went down in the forest, we need to find it; no one can know we were trying to snoop on that mechatank plant.”

You don’t like his tone, but you grunt and do it all the same, because when all this is over he’s going to give you a handsome heap of cash. Once he has the coordinates, he starts down the hill. “It’s this way,” he calls back to you, not even bothering to turn his head around. You hope he trips and falls. He’d probably get grass stains all over his dumb scarf and pretentious striped pants.

It takes two hours of searching in near-darkness to come across the downed drone. It’s hanging from the branch of a redwood, and you have to throw rocks at it until it falls down. You make Eridan catch it, because he’s bigger (and probably stronger, that bitch) than you, but he complains that one of the propellers cut his face and the metal was hot and burnt his hands. You tell him to shut the fuck up as you examine the drone.

“Someone zapped it,” you sigh. “It’s entirely fried. Goddammit, _do you know how much this cost_?”

“If whoever took it down knows we sent it, the money is the last thing you should be worrying about,” he bites, and you think you detect fear under the venom. “Now come on, let’s get out of here. It’s fuckin’ cold.”


	17. Psycho; Nepeta/Gamzee

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: action and suspenseful horror

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is rated M for domestic abuse, physical abuse, and violence

You snarl as you dodge his bat. Gamzee’s weapon crashes into the window behind you, loudly shattering the glass and sending shards into the inside of the shop. Alarms start to blare, and you think, _Thank God_ , because that means the police are coming and they’ll stop your crazy ex from trying to kill you.

It had started with a fight that led to a break up that caused the predicament you’re in now. Equius knows you should be back by know, because you’d only run down the street to grab a Redbox to watch for your 3am movie night, but now your defending yourself against this crazy juggalo that you’d only dated for a fucking _week_.

At the beginning, you’d desperately wished you had your knives on you, because then you’d be able to fuck him up beyond repair. But now, you know he has lean layer of muscle that’s hiding beneath his skin; the deadly force that he uses to swing his bat would break your bones if it even _clipped_ you. You think he must be fucked up on some kind of drug, because you never thought he could act like this; he was always too chill and calm.

Speed is the only advantage you have. Though he’s lightning fast, you’re always one step ahead of him, rolling and dodging out of the way of his swings. At one point, you bolt, running faster than you ever have before as he charges after you, and somehow you think you lose him.

You hide behind a dumpster, smothering your panting by curling up into a ball and breathing through the too-long sleeves of your jacket. The space is tiny; Gamzee wouldn’t be able to fit through without moving the dumpster, and that would alert you to his presence. You don’t want to use your phone—he could see the light—but you have no choice. The alarm from the busted window still echoes through the streets, so you know the police are coming. There’s no need to waste time on 911. Tapping Equius’ name, you quickly type out _, im behind the dumpster at starbucks help_.

Then it’s a waiting game. You hear footsteps, but you don’t know if they’re his or some random passerby’s, but you can’t yell out for help just in case Gamzee finds you that way.

When police sirens finally come, you almost start crying from relief, but simultaneously a hand grabs your arm and rips you from your hiding spot. Your wrist bends wrong and you feel it snap.

You kick out, hissing and spitting and screaming, “ _Get the fuck away from me, you creep_!” Kicking him doesn’t loosen his grip; he stumbles, but doesn’t fall. As a last resort, you sink your teeth into his hand until you taste blood, but he doesn’t even try to pull away. The hand holding his bat winds back to prepare for a blow—

And then the police are there. Everything isn’t magically better, but they get Gamzee on the ground and lead you to their car, putting a shock blanket around your shoulders and sitting you down on the curb as you wait for an ambulance. As you wonder how you’ll pay for medical treatment and all that includes, Equius comes running up, and you cling to him with your good arm in silence.

You’ll never date a juggalo ever again.


	18. Steampunk Noir; Eridan/Roxy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Steampunk and Noir

The airship rattles as it hits another spot of turbulence. Your hands clench tighter around your mug of tea, but Roxy is unaffected; it would take an actual _crash_ to phase her, and even then she wouldn’t panic nearly as much as you. You know she sees the movement but she doesn’t comment on your nervousness until you reach up to fiddle with the goggles you have resting on your forehead. “Hey,” she says quietly, reaching across the table to hold your hand, “we don’t have to take the Vienna job if you don’t want to. You’ve been jumpier than Tavros’ shih tzu ever since we left the ground in London.”

Sighing, you take another sip of tea. Earl grey usually calms you down, but now it just tastes too cool and bitter. You think of your rifles, locked away with the rest of the cargo, and wish you had yours up here so you could methodically take apart the compressors and gears and every bit of it just to put it back together. Your hands like to be busy. But hell, you can’t even smoke on this damn ship—they’d never let you bring a rifle into the compartment with the rest of the passengers.

Your response is barely audible. “We told English we’d take the job, so we’re taking the job. We just need to take down an entire damned crime ring and figure out what the hell happened to the boss’ daughter. How fuckin’ hard can it be?”

Roxy’s mouth forms a thin line, and she abandons her seat across the table from you to slide into your lap, hooking her arms around your neck and pressing her cheek into your temple. She feels so _warm_ , and you can’t help but loop your arms around her waist, leaning into her and taking some of the strength she’s trying to lend you. “We’ll be okay, you worry wart,” she says lightly, playing with the hair at the nape of your neck. You almost want to ask if she still carries a flask of vodka strapped to her thigh, but that’d be a dumb question since you helped her quit drinking a year ago. You just wish you had something to calm your nerves.

Laying your head on her shoulder, you drop a kiss on her clavicle and shut your eyes. Though your legs are beginning to fall asleep from her weight, that’s okay; you just want her to stay right here until you land.


	19. Super Hard; Eridan/Feferi

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Superheroes/Musical

You and Fef have known each other since you were very young. Your parents were in the Evil League of Evil together, and when they realized their kids were the same age, they tried to pair you together so the next generation of villains would be _super_ evil. You trained and learned and fumbled beside each other, choosing your costumes and capes and developing your vocal range, and you knew from the start you didn’t love her like you loved anyone else. You didn’t realize until you hit puberty that you were actually _in love_ with her.

When she turns eighteen and your parents are both pushing you to join the ELE, she comes to you, panicked. She sings about how she’s always felt so confined under her mother’s watchful eye; how she hates that her powers of healing were warped into something wretched; how she’s never wanted to be a villain. You take it all in, surprised that she’s talking to you so freely about her feelings, though you were very aware she never wanted to be a bad person. It’s _you_ who was always fascinated by Machiavelli and laser guns and genocide. She humored you because she loved you, but now as she takes both of your hands and asks you to run away with her to become superheroes, you don’t know what to say.

So you sing. Swallowing, you confess that you’ve always loved her, and you’d do anything that she wished, but you’re afraid: afraid of what your father might think, afraid that the group of heroes she’s been secretly connecting with might not accept you, afraid of making the wrong choice. She licks her lips, then cups your jaw tenderly and pulls you into a kiss.

You’re a goner.

It takes a few hours to decide what’s important enough to take with you, and in the middle of the night, you meet Fef at the entrance to your neighborhood. You catch a bus to the east side of the city, and you hold her hand the whole ride there. She doesn’t comment about your sweaty palms or how you can’t stop shivering, and for that you’re thankful.

The apartment complex you show up to is one you didn’t even know existed, and she leads you up three floors to her “friend Sollux’s place”. When the door opens, you’re surprised to see the Mage of Doom dressed in a bathrobe and bee slippers.

You stay there for a week, then you couch-hop to the house Karkat—the Knight of Blood—shares with Dave and John—the Knight of Time and the Heir of Breath, respectively. Their band of heroes slowly accepts you into the fold, and while they adore Fef, they barely tolerate you. One night, you overhear Sollux telling Feferi that she should dump you because there’s _no way_ a killer like you could ever be anything but evil, and for a few days after that you mope around more than usual.

But when you do your first group musical number and take down a crime ring, you think this is a lot better than receiving lectures and death glares for the tiniest slip-ups.

(Plus, they let you keep your cape.)


	20. Wrestlemania; Nepeta/Equius

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt:

You’ve been training for this match for a very long time. You’ve downed protein shake after protein shake while maintaining a grueling exercise regimen while also saving time to get tea with your best friend. Between workouts, fan events, and the actual time spent in the ring, you don’t get a lot of time for regular things like dinners out and sleep.

It’ll be different after this, though. You plan to retire and move into personal training after this one last match: the _championship_ match.

“You can do this,” your best friend tells you before you go into the ring, and that’s all you need. Confidence swells in you as you get up from the stool, rolling your shoulders and cracking your neck.

The fight is a hard one, of course—you would expect no less from the championship round. Eventually, you have the other wrestler pinned, and the commentators are abuzz as the referee counts…

And you win!

As you wipe the blood from your split lip and you lift your arms, cheering, an announcer yells, “This year’s champion, Nepeta Leijon!”

For days, you’re swamped by the media. When it finally dies down weeks later, you and Equius are able to go to a cute little ‘50s-style diner you’ve always loved, and you can’t help but snap a picture for your Snapchat story of you and Equius sharing a milkshake and sipping on two different straws. Ah yes, the lives of the two beefiest, hardcore people in your circle of friends. Just because you wrestle for a living (or used to, at least) doesn’t mean you can’t do _cute_ things!

The paparazzi get a lot of photos of you during your break from any sort of work—a picture of Equius pushing you on the swings goes viral; your name trends on Facebook when a photo of you is taken at the beach, where you were making sandcastles and Equius is buried next to you into the sand, his lower half sculpted into a mermaid tail; you turn to the sports section of your local newspaper to find a snapshot of you wearing shuttershades and sipping on a smoothie whilst carrying one of your cats (Akwete Purrmusk, to be exact). Equius offers to punch out the paparazzi whenever you see them, but you just laugh; there aren’t very many of them, and they’re more amusing than annoying. Plus, only one or two of them tend to show up at the same time.

Or at least, that’s the case until Equius decides to join the world of professional wrestling.


End file.
